Bee Hive Swarm Quilt

Do you ever have one of those things happen to you that you constantly have to remind yourself happened? Well, back in June when I went to see Bill Kerr speak I had the most surreal and amazing thing happen to me (and I’m a little upset with myself that it’s taken this long to write about it!).

Let me start way back at the beginning of this whole thing so you can truly appreciate the level of organisation and supreme awesomeness involved. In January this year I had an idea to ask Alyce (of Blossom Heart Quilts) about running a Bee Hive in conjunction with her year long Bee Hive Quilts project. I was contributing a block pattern and I’d been part of the Modern Quilt Bee in Australia and I knew how much people love being in Bees (me included) and so I thought it would be a good fit to run a bee from.

Alyce agreed and we set about getting it done. We both thought there’d be all of 3 bees worldwide – we were not prepared for the 300+ people that wanted to be involved. I spent a good few days straight organising, sending emails, setting up groups and coordinating people. It was a heap of work, but the project manager in me enjoyed it and I loved seeing how excited people were.

6 months into the year and I still get a thrill every time I see bee hive quilt blocks popping up on social media. I love the thought that there’s new friendships being formed all over the world because of some crazy idea I had in my pyjamas one day.

The Swarm Leaders have made my life so much easier because they’re doing such a fabulous job of organising their Hives (or swarms as we call them) and they’re just making it happen. I feel like I really haven’t done much in the scheme of things. Lucky for me I’m the only one that thinks like that because if Alyce and the Swarm Leaders had been thinking like that I would have missed out on getting the most thrilling, amazing, fabulous, gob smackingly awesomest gift ever.

Fast forward to June and my trip to Sydney to see Bill and I had no idea what was going to transpire. I was so excited about seeing Bill and sharing that experience with Raylee (of Sunflower Quilting) and Gemma (of Pretty Bobbins) that I didn’t think anything else could be afoot. When Raylee arrived carrying one of her quilt bags I figured she was dropping a quilt off to Bill that someone in Canberra had made for him and Weeks.

Bill started his talk and covered his and Week’s approach to quilting and some history of their work and I was spellbound. There’s something so contagious about hearing someone who loves what they do talk about what they do. I was loving the talk, but I really wanted to get to the sew and tell. (Let’s face it we all want quilt candy!) When he started to transition from his talk to showing their work he mentioned that he had something he wanted to do first and motioned to the bag that Raylee had brought with her.

I turned to Raylee and whispered, “What’s in the bag?”. Her response was a little curt and totally out of character for her normal demeanour and it sat me on my heels and shut me up.  So when Bill called me up to the front of the room to help him I wasn’t giving it much thought past “Gosh, I hope I haven’t upset Raylee” and “I’m sure he just asked me because we’d Skyped before and so he knows my name”. I had no clue that I was about to do something I hate doing…. cry in front of strangers.

Bill picked up the quilt bag and started to take a quilt out of it. As he was doing this he started talking to me and the room about how it had come to his attention that I’d helped organise this worldwide quilting bee and that the people in the Bee wanted to thank me by making me this quilt… and then he handed me the quilt and for a brief moment I nearly channeled Elaine from Seinfeld and told him to “Get out”. (You know, as in “get out of here I don’t believe you” surprise not “get out of here and never come back”.)

He handed me the quilt and asked me to read the label out to everyone…. and to be quite frank right about here is where my brain imploded and I started to concentrate more on not losing my sh!t in front of a room full of strangers and so I’m not sure what else he said to me.

I have a confession to make; I don’t do receiving gifts very well. It makes me super self conscious and uncomfortable and I always feel like I never convey exactly how much I love receiving the gift. Put me in front of one of my quilt idols and a room full of strangers and this weird little complex just gets blown way out of control. I’m sure I didn’t do enough to express how much I was really moved and touched by this amazing gift. And even now a month or so later I still feel like I haven’t done enough.

I cannot begin to full express just how amazing this gift is. I never really understood fully the impact of giving a gift that someone can wrap themselves up in means, but now I do and I’ll be gifting a lot more quilts in my future.

This quilt means so much to me because I know and understand how much work goes into making the blocks, the cost of posting the blocks, the supplies, the time, the amazing quilting. Everything. It has so much meaning to me – the blocks are from the Bee Hive Quilt series, the backing fabric was fabric that I commented on when Alyce shared that she’d bought some in Japan and I wanted it (You can read about Alyce’s sneaky little plans in making this quilt by clicking here) , the quilting pattern is one that I used for another quilt of mine which Raylee quilted and the people involved are all people who make my life better by just being in it. It’s like a big bundle of love from all over the world.

This photo is probably the best way I can express how this quilt made me feel. When this was taken I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to have an accident – it was all the joy, love and shock finding it’s way out of my body. Just looking at this photo makes me smile because I’m taken back to how surreal that evening was and how loved I felt.

Thank you to everyone that was involved in making this quilt. Thank you to Alyce for organising it and thank you to Raylee for quilting it and tracking me down and making the gift exchange so memorable. When the world is crashing in on me it’s nice to know that I can wrap myself in a quilt and know that I am loved and appreciated. Thank you!